Re: New DFSG-compliant emacs packages
David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:
> > Experienced users know Emacs enough to get along without its
> > documentation,
>
> Again, this is utter nonsense. I am an active Emacs developer and
> maintainer of AUCTeX, and such can hardly be called inexperienced, and
> I frequently need the documentation.
That may only mean that you need the documentation in your role as
a developer, not as a user. That's certainly the case for me. I rarely
use the docs in my day-to-day job while using Emacs, but do need it when
coding for it.
> > Again, the split was made to make things clear toward licensing.
>
> The purpose of Debian is to provide free software, not to provide a
> lecture about it.
I guess it's the FSF's job to lecture about it in non-removable sections
of unrelated documentaion.
> If Emacs (as created, provided and named by the
> FSF) can't be provided in Debian main according to Debians guidelines,
> it should get moved as whole to non-free.
David, why are you getting so upset about this as a Debian user? If
you're unhappy with debian, by all means use another distribution; there
are plenty to choose from. No, I'm not trying to irritate you. I just
wonder why it matters so much that Debian thinks differently about these
freedoms than the FSF does.
The FSF can decide what to package together when they make their own
distribution, but this call is made by the Debian package maintainer(s).
> There is no sense in providing only a partly functional part in main.
And you also wrote:
> > Do you actually believe that emacs without docs is not
> > useful?
>
> Quite a number of commands don't work.
If quite a number of commands don't work without the docs, then one can
wonder why the FSF choose to relaese the two parts under different
licenses in the first place.
Heck, I'm even wear my Emacs hat for this post...
--
Peter S. Galbraith, MH-E developer <p.galbraith@globetrotter.net>
GPG key 1024/D2A913A1 - 97CE 866F F579 96EE 6E68 8170 35FF 799E
6623'rd GNU/Linux user at the Counter - http://counter.li.org/
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